Violet Parkhurst was born in Derby
line, Vermont. She showed an early penchant for drawing. She later
attended the School of Practical Arts in Boston, won a scholarship to
the Museum of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro, followed by a year of study
at Baylor College in Waco, Texas. She then finished her formal training
at Los Angeles State College.

Believing that an artist should see
the world before they can become a great artist, she indulged her
longings and visited every state of the Union, then Canada. In Mexico
City she studied art for three months with Diego Rivera's wife. She
received a scholarship to the Rio de Janeiro Museum and was off to South
America. On her way to Rio, the ship she was on had to drop the
passengers in Natal, Brazil due to a revolution. They had to use the
ship for Army personnel. She then rented a house in Natal, Brazil,
studied Portuguese and wrote and illustrated a book. It was entitled
"Jaguar By The Tale!" and was published in Rio. Here she painted
pictures of the natives, the fruit markets and huts, all of which she
sold. To pay for the travel, she became a Foreign Correspondent for
movie magazines published and distributed in South America. She has
interviews and photos of herself with most of the major stars including
Clark Gable whom she dated.

Parkhurst gave up writing and turned
seriously to painting because of her love for this medium. The
temperament she inherited from her French mother and Scotch-Irish father
could best be expressed by oils and brush. This internationally
acclaimed woman artist is no mild illustrator, nor is she a dabbler in
prosaic landscapes. Instead she specializes in two genres into which
women painters have rarely ventured, seascapes and nudes, and certainly
not with the force, action and vibrancy she brings to her work.

Her love of the ocean also includes
her own sailboats and cruisers in which she has enjoyed exploring the
Pacific and Mexican waters. Her other love is her thoroughbred horses,
which she has bred and raced since 1976 with many winners.

Parkhurst paints seascapes,
life-like studies of the bubbling foam-flinging seas of the world, which
thunder of the shores in their wild rush for the beach. She captures the
moonlit seas as well as the summer surf.

She paints both the male and female
nude, not thin, demure, cloak-shrouded figures, but full, fleshy,
wholly-exposed Rubensian nudes set in dreamy settings and displaying
unashamedly their magnificent, God-given charms and attributes. For her
successful invasion of these customarily male domains, and for her
masterful rendering of the paintings, Violet Parkhurst has won
scholarships, trophies, ribbons, accolades, critical acclaim and an
international reputation.

Two of her seascapes were chosen
with twenty-four other artist's paintings to tour Europe for the
Cultural Exchange. The show was at all major museums including the
Louvre and Prado. The two paintings are now in the permanent collection
of the Stockholm Museum.

In the Spring of 2002, Violet
Parkhurst was invited to China, where she was honored as the first
western artist to have paintings in the collections of The Great Hall of
the Peoples Republic of China and the China National Museum of Fine
Arts, and was installed as Professor Emeritus at the Jilin Art College.

Violet has served on the Board of
Directors for the Hollywood Bowl Easter Sunrise Service, and her artwork
has been used on the cover of the program, website and marketing
materials for the past 20+ years. On their site Violet is listed as
"Angel" which is the highest level of supporter.

Violet's paintings are in eight
museums worldwide and she is listed in Who's Who in the World, Who's Who
in International Art, Community Leaders, Noteworthy Americans and
American Artists of Renown.

Parkhurst painting feature on the set of the hit TV show "The
Jeffersons"